Monday, March 14, 2011

Patchwork String Bowl

My friend Michelle came over on Saturday, and we had the best time making these fantastic patchwork string bowls. They’re easy, but time-consuming—we had to take a pizza break halfway through, just to keep up our strength—but they’re sturdy, they use up your scraps (that’s getting to be a theme around here) and when they’re done, they look like something you brought home as a souvenir from your trip to Belize.

You need a long piece of new clothesline (which seems to come in 100 ft. lengths; you can get it at the dollar store) and a bunch of fabric strips cut to around 3/4” to 1” in width. There’s no need to measure as you cut, since precision is not important here. You also need a few straight pins and a sewing machine that will sew a zigzag stitch. A metal binder clip also comes in handy.

The quick rundown is that you wrap the fabric strips around and around the clothesline cord, pinning in places where you join strips together, and then stitch them into a coil using the zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. Then you angle the coil as you go, making the sides slant upward. The more often you switch colors, the patchworkier it all looks in the end. You’ll want to get better details than this if you want to try it yourself—Michelle and I used the book It’s a Wrap by Susan Breier.

I couldn’t believe how well this turned out—I was really expecting I wouldn’t be able to pull this off, at least not on the first try. But I did, it was easy! Hers turned out great, too—I wish I could show you, but it was dark when she took hers home, and I couldn’t photograph it.

You could make placemats, coasters, rugs, buckets, baskets, bowls…oh gosh, I can’t wait.